Ark. to look at other execution drugs

Officials say Arkansas plans to consider using different drugs in lethal injections after the state lost its account with a pharmaceutical company that supplied it with drugs earlier this year.

State Department of Correction spokeswoman Shea Wilson told The Associated Press Monday that the agency no longer has a supplier for the drugs listed in its current lethal injection protocol. So, Wilson says the department plans to look at other drugs and to rewrite its protocol.

The AP first reported in April that Arkansas planned to use an anti-seizure drug called phenobarbital in executions, even though that chemical has never been used in a lethal injection in the United States.